The Tories plan to go ahead with the last phase of their planned corporate tax giveaway is a scam, a sham and a circus.
The scam is that federal corporate tax rates in Canada have dipped 5% in the last five years. One point for each of the Tories years in office. We continue the race to the bottom of corporate tax havens around the world at a cost to the Canadian treasury of over $60 billion dollars. This is not seed money for mom and pop operations in Canada but for the big players who already seem to doing just fine, thank you very much. If not how could they afford to pay their CEO’s salaries from $10-$20 million dollars a year? That’s more money in the first week in January than all the rest of us will receive for an entire year.
The sham is that these monies are being granted to corporations in the hopes that they will re-invest this free cash to create more jobs in Canada. Some jobs will be created through these slush funds but most of it will go to already profitable corporations who will use it to reward their CEO’s (see above) and their shareholders. Some of it, an estimated $4-$6 billion dollars will even go to corporations who are headquartered outside of this country. You heard of trickle down economies, this is a trickle, no a flood upwards.
The circus is that Harper has dispatched Jim Flaherty and his senior ministers (flunkies) to go out and spread the word to Canadians that this sour medicine is actually good for us. And anybody who opposes these tax cuts are job killers and cat haters… (sorry I couldn’t resist). According to the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives our whole economic recovery depends on this. Without it we are doomed to be a nation of poor, ignorant, imbeciles. Maybe they were talking about themselves there.
The bottom line is that these corporate tax cuts are unnecessary, unwarranted and unaffordable. Every tax dollar that is given away to corporations is another dollar that you and I will have to pay in order to reduce the deficit. What is really needed is a reform of our taxation system so that they who have a lot pay a little more and not get a free ride. It’s time to restore some level of fairness to the Canadian tax system.
mike54martin 
Time For a New Minority Government
I had always thought that the worst possible thing that could happen was a Tory Majority government. That might still be true but I’m not sure that we can survive another Tory minority government either.
Let’s look at their record. In minority government they have given $60 billion dollars in tax cuts to corporations, neutered the parliamentary committee process, and systematically silenced their critics inside and outside of government. They have even co-opted the media so that any opposition to their plans has to be justified before it can be made public.
Their up-coming plans include spending billions to build prisons when the crime rate is going down and billions more on fighter jets. Who are we defending ourselves from or more importantly who are they planning to attack in our name?
The Conservatives have managed to stay in power by playing to their base and forcing the other political parties to fight amongst themselves. They got here by uniting the right in Canada and to get them out we need to unite the left and centre left.
How we do that I’m not quite sure but despite the fact that no opposition party is supporting it and all of them are actively running against the idea of a left of centre coalition, recent polls have shown that even though the Conservatives are ahead in a first past the post poll there is almost a dead heat when asked if they would support a Liberal/NDP Coalition. See the Jan 13 EKOS poll below.
http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full_report_january_13.pdf
Together we have the numbers to beat the Conservatives and stave off disaster but do we have the political will? One thing is clear and that is if we do the same thing we did the last time we know what the result will be. Isn’t it time we actually started building for success instead of accepting our ultimate demise?